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How our designers made the move to Creative Cloud for teams

When Adobe announced that their key apps were moving to Creative Cloud and that a new teams option would be available, we decided to sign our in-house design team up straight away. While they were initially nervous, we now have a team of designers who can work remotely, collaborate easily and have developed an unhealthy fascination with InCopy…

Choosing to move to Creative Cloud for teams

As the UK’s largest Adobe reseller, we’re always keen to get our hands on the latest updates so that we know what our customers are dealing with. However, when the design team found our that their beloved copies of Creative Suite were going to be confiscated, they were a little worried.

“At first, I was apprehensive, because it was really an unknown,” explains our design manager Loui Goldsworthy. “Because of the name, I thought it might change how our team works. Would it pull from a server continuously and be slow?” (These worries turned out to be unfounded – our team just needed to download the apps once, then worked locally as they had before, without the need to connect to Adobe’s servers or maintain a constant internet access.)

But the possibility of accessing new features quickly overcame any nerves. “We thought it was the right thing to do – we were excited to move and see the new features we’d get to explore, and we always want to make sure we’re utilising the latest features and using the most efficient workflow,” Loui.

As for the designers themselves, their reactions ranged from excited to nervous to worried that they’d have to pay for their own software – a worry quickly put paid to by the arrival of Creative Cloud for teams, which allowed everything to be managed centrally rather than forcing each designer to take out an individual licence.

Getting set up with Creative Cloud for teams

When it came to getting set up with Creative Cloud for teams, “It was really easy,” said Loui. “We just had to assign the email addresses of the individual designers to the licence. They then got an invitation to the main Creative Cloud portal.”

From there, the designers can download whichever apps they need. If their requirements change or they want to explore a new app, they simply head back to the portal. On the flipside of that, our design managers can also choose to lock down apps if they wish. “We’ve stayed away from that as just because some of our apps aren’t part of our workflow now, doesn’t mean they won’t be in the future. If we don’t explore them we don’t know what we could be missing. The expanded range of apps available as standard in Creative Cloud for teams is great to give us opportunities to be able to cater more widely to our clients’ needs.”

Finding new features and tools

One of the main benefits of moving to Creative Cloud for teams was that our designers got access to a host of new tools. “I love the idea of Edge Animate and the possibilities it opens up when you’re creating HTML5 animations for websites and iBooks,” said Paul, while our graphic designer Liana is a big fan of Kuler: “You can download it to your iPhone, which is great if you get inspiration on the go or need to kill time on the bus.”

Across the department, there’s also been a lot of interest in InCopy. “I looked at it years ago but made the decision that the extra cost wasn’t justified then – now it’s free it might be a really useful addition to our workflow,” said Loui.

So would we recommend it?

“Yes,” said Loui. “Firstly because the range of apps that come as standard within Creative Cloud and the seamless integration between them. And secondly because of the admin side of things – I’m very pleased not to have to mess about with loading installer CDs, it’s much better to have a central area where I can download the apps I need when I need them. Plus it’s great that the licence allows me to load Creative Cloud on my home computer so I can continue with some bits at home if I need to, or any of the team can pick up work out of office – it helps us stay productive without being tied down.”

“I’ve changed my mind about the cost after working with it,” Paul added. “Yes, on the face of it, moving to a subscription rather than owning your software is strange, but you do get access to all the applications. This opens a lot of doors creatively and also challenges you and makes you want to learn more and do more.”